Page 7

Chapter seven

S narling threats low under their filthy breath, Circe’s beasts forced Raggon to march across the beach after the Land Witch.

These sister witches were the terror of Everrgold—Circe the Land Witch transforming men into beasts, while her sister Scylla the Sea Witch dragged entire ships to their doom. Their mutual hatred was perhaps Everrgold’s only salvation—without it, they might have joined forces and left nothing alive.

Raggon grimaced as Circe’s minions prodded him forward—he preferred the quick death Scylla offered to Circe’s twisted games. They crested the first dune when his childhood home came into view through the thinning morning mist. The sight knocked the breath from his lungs.

The palace rose proudly against the deep jungle—just as he’d remembered. Its alabaster spires caught the golden light like fingers of flame. But Circe’s touch corrupted everything. Sharp iron spikes now crowned the once-graceful towers. The gentle gardens where he’d played as a child had been transformed into a maze of thorny vines that writhed in the sea breeze as if tortured. The nostalgia twisting in his gut, was laced with a deep and abiding sorrow of what had become of his memories. His mind latched onto the only thing left—Tobias.

Oh, Smiley! You’d better be alive, kid! If he wasn’t, Raggon would spend his life avenging his younger brother.

A stench of brine and decay rolled off the water in a moat that encircled the palace grounds. Also new… and unnecessarily putrid. He held his breath. Another whiff of that rot, and he’d lose the contents of his stomach.

“Lower the drawbridge!” Circe’s command cracked through the air like a whip.

The ancient chains groaned as the bridge descended. Each link was as thick as Raggon’s arm, inscribed with runes that pulsed with a sickly green light. The heavy planks were scarred and stained dark—he wasn’t sure if that was water damage, or something worse.

He stifled an inward groan. His home had become a fortress for war, not the haven he once knew.

Raggon’s mangled countrymen marched him across the bridge—it swayed slightly beneath their weight. A deep rumble echoed from the moat, sending tremors beneath his feet. He froze, noticing his guards had done the same. Something odd watched them beneath the bridge’s supports, and then it moved, breaking the water’s surface with scales flashing like wet obsidian, rippling underneath in a serpentine shape, and then it was gone.

The palace had become a place of no escape. And yet, his mind—treacherous thing that it was—still plotted out the possibilities. Nothing could keep him here!

They entered the great hall, and Raggon’s stomach lurched. The court he remembered, with its elegant marble floors and shimmering tapestries, had been transformed into a witch’s lair. Circe no longer hid her true nature in the belly of her castle.

Broken glass crunched beneath their boots. Spilled potions left dark stains across the floor. More dark splatters. The woman couldn’t stop staining the upholstery with her violence. Bottles of unknown contents lined makeshift shelves, their contents glowing with sputtering lights or writhing shadows.

Circe lifted her stiff skirts and scuttled through the chaos like a spider moving through her web. The comparison became more apt as she ascended to her blood-red throne, perched upon a dias that had once held his father’s seat of power. The woman was a deadly black widow.

And she demanded to marry him? Sure, that would turn out well… for her. Every part of him raged out to him in warning. Her billowing cloak settled around her, and once again, Raggon noticed the strange way it bunched at her back. The witch most definitely hid something grotesque beneath its folds.

Her beasts shoved Raggon into the center of the room. Broken glass bit into the knees of his leather boots when they forced him to kneel like a craven sea dog. “Careful,” Raggon told them, forcing dark humor into his voice—nothing else could stop his skin from crawling. “You don’t want to set off her traps.”

“Naughty… you’ve always been a naughty, naughty man.” Circe’s lower lip drooped in an exaggerated pout. The expression might have been comical if not for the predatory gleam in her eyes. “I’ve been searching for you everywhere since I discovered you yet breathed. Why hide from me, Raggon? I need you; I want you. I can’t live without you.”

The sarcasm in her voice was customary in his trade—he’d heard it often enough in port taverns. But coming from someone with her power, it sent ice through his veins. Her sudden attention had nothing to do with affection.

He steadied himself before speaking, careful not to show how the manacles already made his wrists ache. “Cut line, Circe. What is it you want?”

“A dagger actually,” she said, her lips widening unnaturally. “Kind of you to inquire.”

His father’s? Raggon’s heart clenched at the thought. “You should’ve asked more nicely for it. Now it’s lying on the bottom of the sea. But send your best divers, I’m sure Poseidon won’t mind your poking around his territory.”

“Poseidon? Bah! There will be no interference from him. He’s dying,” Circe’s words hit him like a physical blow, and unbidden, his mind flashed to fiery hair and midnight black eyes. Was this why the merfolk had worked with a Land Witch? “Oh, you didn’t know?” Her pleased tone showed how she savored his shock. “And I’m not looking for some stupid dagger from your father—I’m talking about Undine’s Blade!”

What was she blabbering about? Yes, the Undine’s curse was the tale of how the Sylphorian’s royal powers came to be… but this dagger she spoke of? “You want something from a fairytale,” he snapped.

“You fool! The blade is real, and now that he’s dying…” Her crimson lips curved into a cruel smile, “the sea no longer guards us from the enchanted weapon. You will fetch this dagger from the heart of the Undine Isles for me.”

She was mad! And he was in no position to fight her. He shifted, the sound of his jingling manacles echoing in the vast chamber. What was it that she’d trapped him with—a Typhon’s Kiss? The name sparked something in his memory, and his eyes traced the strange material, really seeing it for the first time. His breath caught at what she’d done. These were the forbidden metals of old sea-magic—dark iron that seemed to drink in the light, and a lighter metal that shimmered like seafoam, bound together in an intricate tapestry of frozen waves.

His father’s lessons rushed back to him: the lighter sea steel was used to bind creatures of the deep, to drain their magic until nothing remained. But the dark iron… his gaze darted to the beasts. That was the metal of transformation, the cursed element that turned men into monsters.

Already the combination drained him, pulling at his magic and weakening him. Behind him, the heavy breathing of the monstrous guards rasped like waves on gravel, a constant reminder of his fate if these bonds weren’t broken.

“In return for this treasure, we will reunite our countries in peace,” Circe continued, rising from her throne with unnatural grace. “Your hand will be joined with mine in matrimony and we will quit these tiresome wars.”

That threat again? And how long would she let him live after this happy occasion… or would she force him to sire children for her first, steal the royal Sylphorian blood to gain their powers in her line?

Disgusting thought.

He vied for time, trying to play along. “Why put me to this task? I doubt it’s my charm.”

Circe tilted her head, the movement too sharp. “My sister and I are of one mind on this.”

Her sister? Scylla and Circe were never of one mind on anything. The danger of such a twisted alliance hummed through his veins, though surely this was a trick?

“The dark waters have whispered of your success at getting this dagger,” Circe continued. “The fortunes have spoken. You will serve me by bringing in this power.” The light streaming through the high windows caught her face at an angle that made her pale face stand out like a skull. Did she expect him to fall at her feet like some blubbering dog?

“I thank you for the honor, witch,” he said. Glancing up at the beasts, and with great daring, he pushed to his feet, trying to ignore the jangling Typhon’s Kiss that kept him from truly causing any damage. “Truth be told, I’d rather die a watery death than sell my soul to the woman who murdered my parents and stole away my sister, but thanks for thinking of me.”

The shriek that erupted from her throat pierced his skull like poisoned needles. He gritted his teeth against the unnatural sound, noticing how her ruby-red lips stretched impossibly wide, revealing a fanged maw of a grotesque death mask. What remained of the stained-glass windows shattered. Shards burst over them, raining down like fallen stars.

He fought the vertigo that threatened to drop him back to his knees. The beasts behind him groaned in agony, clutching cauliflower ears.

Yeah, this delightful sea-viper must be a real pearl to live with.

As the sound faded and the last pieces of colored glass tinkled to the floor, Raggon’s lips curved up, with more rebellion than amusement. She’d killed his parents; his sweet sister was nowhere to be found, his cousins were never seen again. He glared. “Your argument doesn’t move me, hag. Sorry.”

The words had barely left his mouth when a gyrating convulsion erupted behind her hunchback. Snake-like tentacles ripped through the back of her dress, shredding the luxurious shadowsilk like paper. Raggon stumbled backward, his boots crunching on more broken glass.

The beasts scattered with whimpers of terror, though something else horrifying glittered in their eyes—dark anticipation.

A massive tentacle, black as deep-sea ink and covered in reptilian scales, came at Raggon, whipping around his stomach. Another, this one blood-red and glistening like wet muscle, coiled around his neck. His back slammed against the wall with enough force to drive the breath from his lungs. The tendril around his throat constricted, cutting off his desperate gasp for air.

“Only an heir of the Sea Sovereignty can touch the mermaid hair of Undine Blade.” Her shrieking voice penetrated his skull, making his brain feel like it would melt with her invasion. Lifting her delicately horrific fingers, she snapped at a tarnished silver frame hanging askew on the moldering wall that had been a mirror only seconds before, his reflection of writhing limbs and face reddening as he clawed desperately shifted into something even stranger and more malignant—a blade. Nothing unusual about the sight, only that its vehemence poured ice into his veins.

“All others will wither before it,” Circe cried. His eyes veered to a rainbow of silken strands blowing around a hilt, as she continued to explain this horror, “their mortal flesh turning to seafoam at the merest caress of those shimmering strands—woven from the tears of sirens and cursed by moonlight upon the deepest tides.”

The dagger pulsed in the mirror’s surface, seeming to reach for him across the boundary between worlds. Each strand of mermaid hair writhing, while the blade lifted with terrible purpose, as though seeking his heart specifically.

“How dare you look on Poseidon’s youngest daughter, human?” A whisper from the mirrored image poured through the room, deafening him like no whisper should: “To put your hands on her? Did you think to claim her sea-blessed heart for your mortal collection when you stole her kiss upon the waves?”

How had it known that? The reality of this ancient relic’s power shook him to the core; there was no denying the truth of the legends he’d always believed were old wives’ tales. Undine’s Blade truly existed.

“You heard its whisper, did you not?” Circe asked him.

Who didn’t? The mirror wasn’t exactly keeping its voice down, and its magic still consumed him, flooding him with ancestral memories—the blade had been forged for one purpose, to go through the heart of an ancient Sylphorian prince’s heart. Though it had failed, Raggon could almost feel the phantom pain of the sharpened point sliding between his ribs. The dagger knew him—knew his bloodline—and he could feel its hunger for vengeance across the generations.

“My enemy…”

How could Circe think that he could touch the hilt because he was also a descendant to Undine? Storms! The blood he’d inherited from Poseidon’s sister was diluted by more than a thousand years! He was not a true heir of the Sea Sovereignty! The instant his fingers brushed this bewitched mermaid’s hair; his heart would give out. He was sure of it—that blade hungered for his royal Sylphorian blood!

Circe’s gaze sharpened on him. “Have you dallied with a mermaid like your treacherous ancestor did before you? What was his name… let me see if I can remember, King Huldbrand, was it?”

She cackled when he refused to answer… couldn’t answer. The tendril around his throat constricted, cutting off his desperate gasp for air, the slick surface burning like salt in an open wound wherever it touched his flesh. “Surely, you believe in fairy tales now?”

Yes! Depths take him! And they would finish him off! She’d found the wrong guy. How could he get that through the witch’s thick head? The Sylphorian’s Sovereign Sea ancestor lived a millennia ago and was long gone. Undine’s curse had made King Huldbrand’s descendants something else entirely—neither human, nor merman, only beings of the air. But the tentacles squeezing him like the pythons from their jungles made it impossible to retort. He couldn’t fight back, couldn’t even draw breath.

“You will bring me the blade, my dutiful prince, and I don’t care how you do it!”

She’d kill him before he could fulfill her impossible quest. Dark spots danced at the edge of his vision. All at once, she released him.

He crashed to the filthy floor, choking and coughing. His elbows crunched against spilled potion bottles, the fumes stinging his skin, the manacles scraping against stone. Through watering eyes, he caught sight of something in the Typhon’s Kiss—a hair-thin seam where the two metals met, where they seemed to resist each other despite their forced union. His gaze latched onto the flaw like a drowning man spotting a piece of driftwood.

“Aw… you wish to be free from your bonds?” The sound of stiff fabric rustling made his head snap up. Circe had already descended from her throne to glide before him, looming like a storm cloud ready to unleash lightning. “The Undine Blade will cut that clean through…” she gestured at his manacles with one elegant hand, “another reason to get to that treasure…or if you choose to become a beast rather than join me, perhaps your younger brother will take up my kind offer?”

Every muscle in his body tensed at the danger, even as hope flickered in his chest. “Is he alive?”

“You’d better hope he isn’t, or I won’t need you.” She marched from the room in a huff. He noticed the back of her dress ripped open, the tentacles, now bunched together against her back in a hideous mass of coiled snakes pulsing beneath the torn fabric.

She snapped at her beasts on her way out. “Take him to my dungeons.”

My family’s dungeon… but whatever.

Circe swept her many-layered cape around her shoulders, the movement graceful despite her monstrous appendages. “Let him rot there until he comes to his senses… or not.” Her smile returned when she glanced back, her gleaming eyes running over him. His stomach turned at her considering gaze. He was nothing more than a pawn to move at her every whim. “Though I’d rather have you as you are than another mindless minion. That would make my sister burn with jealousy!” With a final wink that made his skin crawl, she was gone.

The beasts seized him once more, their claws digging into his arms. The dungeon was a part of his childhood home he’d never visited, a labyrinth of narrow corridors that spiraled down into darkness. The walls reeked of decay. Each step took them further from the daylight until the only illumination came from sputtering torches that cast writhing shadows on the mold-covered stones.

The stench grew worse down here—a nauseating mix of unwashed bodies, and something else, something that reminded him of the creature in the moat. His boots slipped on stones slick with things he didn’t want to contemplate. The guards’ heavy breathing echoed off the walls, punctuated by occasional growls.

With one final shove from their ogre hands, he fell into a narrow cell barely wide enough for him to lie down. The iron door clanged shut with a finality that actually brought him relief—the barrier kept those monstrosities on the other side. Circe was the worst of them. Their shuffling footsteps and bestial breathing faded down the corridor, leaving him blessedly alone.

Raggon sank down against the damp dirt, taking in his new prison. Scratch marks covered the cement walls, endless notches for days that other unlucky souls had spent in this dungeon. Half-buried in the moldy straw, he spotted what might have been shackles—and flinched when he looked closer.

Nope. Bones.

He rested his head in hands. The Typhon’s Kiss scraped against his cheeks. The metal felt warmer than before, his skin colder. Was it actually drawing the heat from his body? Anything was possible with Circe’s dark magic. And still he felt a raw hope, that perhaps he had no right to feel, but he clung to it—Tobias. The witch wanted his brother alive.

Wherever he was, Raggon prayed he was safe.

Squeezing his eyes shut, flashes of fiery hair flooded his thoughts. “Undine’s curse,” he muttered. He was never going to get over that kiss, was he? The siren’s spell was more potent than anything Circe had done to him.

Was Poseidon really dying? And now Scylla was forming an alliance with her sister—what did that mean for them all? The last domain free from Circe’s power had been the sea.

His gaze dropped to the manacles, studying once again that flaw he’d spotted in their design, where the metals rejected each other like oil and water. Even Circe’s magic couldn’t force two opposing elements to truly become one.

Sounded familiar. I’ll never marry that hag!

He hurriedly undid the heel in his boots to retrieve a small crescent knife. In the guttering torchlight, he began to work at that resistant seam, where the two magics fought against their forced union. If he could widen that gap, force the metals further apart… His hands trembled with exhaustion, making the knife slip against the enchanted metal. Each scrape echoed off the damp walls.

He’d barely made a scratch, and still that hair-thin line taunted him. Like the mermaid’s kiss—his thoughts remained tormented by visions of hair floating like flame through the crystal water, her curious dark eyes, the softness of her lips. Was that part of her spell too? To make him remember her beauty even as her betrayal destroyed him?

The knife slipped again, this time drawing blood from his palm. He cursed under his breath. The Typhon’s Kiss held firm, as unyielding as Circe’s plans for his future.